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Friday, August 28, 2015

Turkish soccer supports Erdogan’s war against the Kurds

The Turkish Football Federation (TFF), in a demonstration of
the inseparable ties between sports and politics, has effectively declared its
support for renewed Turkish-Kurdish hostilities designed to enhance the
prospects of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party in forthcoming snap
elections.

With armed Kurdish youth effectively taking control of at
least one predominantly Kurdish city in south-eastern Turkey, Turkish war
planes pounding Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in the region as well
as in northern Iraq as well the People's Defence Forces (HPG), the PKK
affiliate in Syria; Turkish authorities arresting some 1,000 alleged PKK
supporters; and PKK attacks on Turkish security forces, the TFF is preparing to
penalize a third league club for releasing white peace doves at the beginning
of a competition match.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) failed in
June to win the majority it needed to again form a one party government and
push through parliament constitutional changes that would turn Mr. Erdogan’s
largely ceremonial presidency into an executive one. Mr. Erdogan has called
snap parliamentary elections for November 1 after the AKP failed to form a
coalition government.

Critics and Kurdish activists charge that Mr. Erdogan hopes
that the breakdown in peace negotiations between the government and the PKK and
the renewed hostilities will allow him to recuperate nationalist votes and
weaken the Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP), the first predominantly Kurdish
party to win seats in parliament at the expense of the AKP.

The TFF’s decision to refer Batman Petrolspor to the
federation’s disciplinary committee highlights the contradictions in efforts by
national, regional and global soccer administrators to maintain the fiction
that sports and politics are not intertwined like Siamese twins at the hip.

The TFF may have a legal foot to stand on with its assertion
that Batman had violated federation rules, yet the move flies in the face of
repeated statements by administrators, including world soccer body FIFA
president Sepp Blatter that soccer is a tool “in our quest for development and
peace.”

By acting on the letter rather than the spirit of laws
governing soccer, the TFF has taken an inherently political decision that works
in Mr. Erdogan’s favour.

It sharpens fault lines that crisscross Turkish soccer
between fans and a government that in recent years has sought to secure
political control of the game in its effort to undermine supporters’ power in
stadia and on the streets as demonstrated in the 2013 mass anti-government
protests and between clubs in predominantly Kurdish south-eastern Turkey that
increasingly position themselves as Turkish Kurdish rather than purely Turkish.

“I don’t know if such a penalty exists anywhere in the
world. At first we thought they were joking.

We only realized it was real once
we got hold of the documentation. We aren’t going to file a defence, because we
don’t recognize our action as a crime. We are willing to accept any form of
penalty. We’d prefer peace in the country and in the region to any
championship,” said Batman vice president Ilhan Erken.

The TFF earlier this year penalized another third tier
soccer club in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir for adopting a
Kurdish name. The federation charged that the club long known by its Turkish
name, Diyarbakır Büyükşehir Belediyespor (Diyarbakir Metropolitan Sport), had
changed its name to the Kurdish Amedspor and had adopted the yellow, red and
green Kurdish colours in its emblem without the soccer body’s approval.

Amed is the long banned Kurdish name for Diyarbakir, the
unofficial Turkish Kurdish capital. The federation said the club had also
failed to register its new name.

Earlier, Ilhan Cavcav, the chairman of Ankara club
Genclerbirligi SK, known for its left-wing fan base, sparked outrage among
nationalists by suggesting that the Turkish national anthem should no longer be
played at the beginning of domestic matches and only in international
encounters. Turkey began playing the anthem at domestic matches in response to
the 30-year old PKK insurgency that has cost more than 40,000 lives.

A match in December 2014 between Amedspor, and Galatasaray
SK, a storied Istanbul club popular among Kurds because imprisoned PKK leader
Abdullah Ocalan identified himself some two decades ago as a Galatasary fan,
witnessed despite pro-Kurdish expressions by supporters of both clubs the
stoning of the Galatasaray team bus.

“We love you, we love the one who loves you even more,” said
a banner hoisted by Galatasaray fans in an apparent reference to Mr. Ocalan.
Fans whistled as the Turkish national anthem played.

Amedspor president Ihsan Avci noted after his club won the
match that it was not “Diyarbakır’s team but Kurdistan’s team, the people’s
team.”

More recently Kurdish disaffection has exploded in unrest in
Cizre, a south-eastern Turkish town where armed youth roam the streets. Non-Kurdish
soccer teams visiting Cizre have seen their buses and players repeatedly
attacked with stones. As a result, Mr. Cavcav’s Genclerbirligi was transported
in armoured vehicles when it came to play in Cizre in December. Media reports
said the same vehicles had last year brought Iraqi Kurdish fighters with
Turkish government approval to the Turkish Syria border from where they headed
to then Islamic State-besieged city of Kobani.

Writing in Turkish daily Vatan, a reporter in Cizre noted
that “nobody knows the reasons (for the unrest) in Cizre. Opinion leaders can’t
explain their meaning. Public officials cannot explain the depth of the
incidents, but step by step things are getting out of control.”

James M.
Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
as Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, co-director of the Institute
of Fan Culture of the University of Würzburg and the author of the blog, The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer, and a forthcoming book with the
same title.

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About Me

James M DorseyWelcome to The Turbulent World of Middle East Soccer by James M. Dorsey, a senior fellow at Nanyang Technological University’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies. Soccer in the Middle East and North Africa is played as much on as off the pitch. Stadiums are a symbol of the battle for political freedom; economic opportunity; ethnic, religious and national identity; and gender rights. Alongside the mosque, the stadium was until the Arab revolt erupted in late 2010 the only alternative public space for venting pent-up anger and frustration. It was the training ground in countries like Egypt and Tunisia where militant fans prepared for a day in which their organization and street battle experience would serve them in the showdown with autocratic rulers. Soccer has its own unique thrill – a high-stakes game of cat and mouse between militants and security forces and a struggle for a trophy grander than the FIFA World Cup: the future of a region. This blog explores the role of soccer at a time of transition from autocratic rule to a more open society. It also features James’s daily political comment on the region’s developments. Contact: incoherentblog@gmail.comView my complete profile